


Begin Again

by whatwrites



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Artist Steve Rogers, Ex-lovers to Lovers, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Light Angst, Romantic Friendship, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24294442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatwrites/pseuds/whatwrites
Summary: They say that love is the strongest thing in the world. Sometimes it’s not only romantic love, but the unconditional and pure love for a four-footed and furry friend.Steve and Natasha recently broke up. But their mutual love for their dog may make them realize that their feelings for one another aren’t gone. It may even help bring them back together again.
Relationships: Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov, Wanda Maximoff & Natasha Romanov
Comments: 7
Kudos: 45





	Begin Again

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I have written in a long time, so I'm quite out of practice, to say the least, and English isn't my native language, so I apologize in advance for any grammatical errors. It's also my first time writing a Steve/Natasha fic, so we'll see where this goes...
> 
> This story takes place in 2018.

”Dodger!”

The dog stops in his tracks, turning his head, tilting it to the side a little; looking at his owner with a questioning expression in his deep brown eyes. His brown fur is almost golden-brown in the morning sunlight. He has some white coloring around his snout that goes down his chest and belly, as well as white-socks on his front legs and a bushy tail.

Steve walks up to him, the ground soft beneath his shoes. “You have to wait, buddy. You can’t just runoff.”

He bends down and scratches the dog behind his ears. Usually, he’s always on a leash, especially when they walk in the city. It’s only in the dog park that he is allowed to be off-leash and now when they are in the woods.

They are on a hiking trail in Upstate New York. Steve loves Brooklyn, loves New York. But sometimes it’s nice to get away from it all and enjoy the calmness and stillness of the wild nature. He has especially found a new kind of joy for it in the last couple of months. Going on hikes has become one of Steve’s favorite ways to relax and get a break from the rest of the world for a while. To breath fresh air and get away from the stress and business of the city. Because let’s be honest, living in the city can be quite draining at times.

It was still quite early in the day. But the weather’s nice enough; the spring air is fresh, but still, a bit chilly, and the sun is shining through the treetops. The birds chirp and on occasion, and now and then, a squirrel crosses the walking trail at high speed, before disappearing up the trees.

Fortunately, Dodger doesn’t care much for hunting. All he does is to stop and watch them hurry over the trail and then continue walking.

They walk on a little further before Steve sticks his hand into the pocket of his jacket and takes out Dodger’s ball. He joggles it a little to catch Dodger’s attention. When he spots the ball in Steve’s hand, he starts jumping around his legs, well knowing what’s coming next.

“You ready, boy?” Steve asks the dog, looking down at him, before throwing the ball as far as he can manage. Dodger whines in excitement and making the leaves and soil whirl behind him as he runs off after his beloved ball. Steve laughs. His dog never fails to make him laugh or bring him into a happy mood. It doesn’t matter how down he might feel, Dodger always manages to turn it around. He’s such a happy-go-lucky kind of soul (as Steve assumes most dogs are), always so radiant with joy and goofiness.

There’s just something special about being around dogs – compared to being around humans – they have a way of making everything seem so easy and carefree. But on the other hand, they don’t have the same worries and responsibilities as humans. Dogs don’t have to worry about going to work, paying the bills, and mortgages. They don’t have to buy groceries or do laundry. Dogs don’t get their hearts shattered in pieces by love.

Steve’s thoughts are interrupted by Dodger returning the ball to him, pleading for him to throw it again. Steve throws it even further this time, and Dodger races after it. They play a few rounds of fetch while they walk on, merely enjoying the morning weather and the nature surrounding them. As they reach the point where the trail divides in two, Dodger stops and waits for Steve to catch up with him. They have walked this particular trail countless times over the past two years – and almost every Sunday these past three months – but Steve is still amazed over how Dodger knows that he’s supposed to wait for Steve to catch up and tell him which way to go.

Steve glances down at his wristwatch; it’s almost noon already, they had been gone for nearly three hours. The left path continues on a longer trail, and the one to the right leads back towards the start of the track.

“C’mon, buddy,” Steve says and walks towards the path to the right. “We have to go home.”

Whether Dodger understands his words or not doesn’t matter, because he gladly trots beside him down the trail anyway, never deviating from his side during the rest of the walk.

Once they’re down the hiking trail and back at the car, Steve pops the trunk open for Dodger to jump in, but not until after he has gulped down some water and gotten a few treats and ear scratches.

The drive back to the city goes smooth, even though the city has now woken up from it’s Sunday slumber and is almost in full activity. Almost. It’s still Sunday, which means that people are slower than usual to get up and going.

Once they reach Brooklyn, Steve steers the car towards Prospect Heights.

In comparison to the other neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Prospect Heights is quieter and relatively small. Due to the rapid demographic changes in the last decade, the district is made up of a mixture of older buildings under reconstruction, classic brownstones, and newer, more luxury condominiums.

As he drives onto Sam’s street, he sees that Sam is already waiting for him in front of his apartment building.

“Hey.” Steve greets his friend as he exits the car. He walks around the car to the back to let Dodger out. But Sam’s a step ahead of him, already letting a thrilled dog out of the vehicle. Dodger jumps up towards Sam, eagerly trying to lick his face. Sam crouches down and allows him to greet him properly.

“Thanks for letting me borrow your car,” Steve says as he hands back Sam his car keys. Sam takes them as he continues to pet Dodger. “No problem, man.”

Steve looks down at the pair, Dodger now on his back on the ground, happily receiving Sam’s belly rubs.

“Who’s watching him this weekend?” Sam asks, peering up at him.

Steve frowns in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“The art convention this weekend? In San Diego?” he replies casually, standing up. “Don’t tell me you forgot.”

Truth be told, Steve had forgotten all about the art convention he had signed up for eight months ago. It’s a convention held in San Diego every year at the beginning of April. It’s the only convention that allows both hobby artists, as well as professional artists, to attend and display their artworks. Steve had decided to participate this year in the hope of expanding his clientele.

Right now, he freelances, taking on different assignments for various business companies, making anything from fliers for events, to designing smaller promotion signs and billboards.

On occasion, he would also get requests to do personalized drawings and paintings for someone. Most of the time, it’s from people he had come in contact with through previous assignments. For the most part, they wanted him to make a portrait of their children or parents as a token or gift. Those jobs were okay enough, it paid him enough to be able to live and pay the bills and other necessities, but it wasn’t very passionate. What he wants to try is to sell his art, and the convention is a chance for him to get a foot through the door to do so, or so he hopes, at least.

“I haven’t forgotten,” Steve lies, “It just hasn't been on the forefront of my mind lately…”

Sam nods understandingly.

That’s one of the things Steve appreciates the most with Sam – apart from the fact that he is a very loyal and supportive friend – he never pushes or asks more questions than necessary. But on that doesn’t mean he won’t call Steve out on his bullshit when he thinks it’s needed. Steve assumes that’s why he’s such a good counselor; he can do both parts, be encouraging when it’s required, but also back off when he senses that the other person thinks it’s too much.

“So who’s taking care of Dodger, then?”

Steve sighs. Initially – as in eight months ago – it was going to be Wanda.

“I haven’t sorted that out yet… Wanda was supposed to have him, but she got some hindrance, something to do with her job.” Steve fiddles with Dodger’s leash. “So I don’t know…” he admits.

Now that Sam has reminded him about the convention, he feels a little stressed, because it’s Wednesday already. They – along with Tony and Pepper – are flying to San Diego on Friday evening. Then they’re attending the convention on Saturday and returning later on Sunday evening. Which means he only has one day to find someone to care for Dodger during the weekend.

It makes him feel a little guilty (and stupid) that he hasn’t sorted this out already, because Wanda had informed him weeks ago that she wouldn’t be able to have Dodger this weekend as it had been planned. But as he had told Sam, it hadn’t been at the forefront of his mind. He had been too preoccupied with trying to get through his heartbreak to think about it (or even remembering it for that matter).

“Maybe I’ll ask my neighbors next door…” Steve mumbles. To be honest, Steve isn’t keen on the idea to ask people he hardly knows to take care of his beloved dog – even if the family next door seems kind enough and even if the daughter always asks if she can pet Dodger whenever they meet. He wants it to be someone he trusts and knows for sure that they will treat Dodger well and understand a dog's needs.

“Why don’t you ask Natasha?” Sam looks over at Steve, who swallows nervously, taken aback by the other man’s question. It’s not what he had expected.

“I can’t do that,” he answers defensively.

“Why not?” Sam asks. “She seems like the perfect choice to me. You already know you can trust her to take care of Dodger, so you don’t have to worry about whether he’s in good hands. She knows all of his routines and habits. And you know they adore each other. You're not gonna get a better solution.”

“You just happen to forget the little detail that she’s my–“ Steve begins, but the word is stuck in his throat. It’s been almost five months, but he still can’t bring himself to say the word. It’s as if allowing himself to say it out loud would be crossing the final line, making it even more definite than it already is. It’s only a word; he knows that saying it won’t change anything. But Steve can't say it. Every time he’s about to, his throat closes up, and his mouth goes dry. He cannot – doesn’t want to – think of her that way. Not yet. It still hurts too much.

Sam looks at him with raised eyebrows. “She’s what?”

Steve avoids his gaze, looking down at his shoes instead. “I can’t ask her, okay?”

Steve can feel Sam's eyes on him, studying him. But he seems to decide that pushing the matter further won’t do any good. So instead, he unhooks his sunglasses from where they’re hanging on the rounded neck of his T-shirt.

“It doesn't hurt to think about it, okay?” he says as he adjusts the tinted glasses on his nose.

“I have got to go. I’ll see you on Friday.”

Steve only nods in response, bending down to clasp Dodger’s leash on his collar. Sam’s question lingerings on his mind the whole way home.

* * *

They are at their usual lunch spot, a small café not far away from the bookstore, and they’d gotten halfway through their lunch when Wanda spoke up again.

“I still don’t understand why—“she begins, and Natasha sighs in dismay, she has deliberately not answered the other woman’s questions for the past four and a half month.

“Wanda, please, can we not talk about it? I just wanna have a nice lunch...” Natasha said. She knew her friend meant well, but she didn’t want to talk about it. It may have been almost five months, but it was too soon. The wound still felt so open and raw.

“Did he cheat?”

To say that the question takes Natasha by surprise is an understatement. Not in a million years had she ever thought Wanda would even consider that Steve would be capable of cheating.

“No!” she exclaims firmly. “How can you even ask that?”

Wanda looks over at her, almost as surprised as Natasha had been about her question. “Well, you have been so mum about your break up, so I figured it must be something bad, or you’d want to talk about it...”

Natasha guessed that made sense, but the reason she didn’t want to talk about her recent breakup wasn’t that she had been cheated on (she hadn’t) or because there had been some big epic fight. No, she just not ready. She’s not ready to comprehend that she might have lost the only person she had ever been truly in love with; that she had let her one shot at love slip through her fingers.

“But you have to remember it’s Steve we are talking about here,” Natasha says in a much softer tone.

 _Steve._ _Steve Rogers._

The guy who had not given up on serving his country, despite being refused to enlist several times, (due to the many health issues he had suffered through earlier in his life). The guy who was a true gentleman and always looked out for other peoples well being before his own. The guy who helped old ladies across the street. Who happily played ball with the kids at the park and gave out candy on Halloween with a genuine smile. Who gave money to street-musicians and let others walk before him in line at the supermarket.

Steve Rogers had treated Natasha better than any man had ever done in her life before. He had loved her for who she was, loved her because of her flaws rather than despite them.

“You really think he would be capable of cheating?” Natasha continued, looking questioningly at Wanda.

The other woman shrugs. “If there’s one thing I have learned, is that you can be surprised with what people, who you thought you knew, are capable of…Things you never thought a person would do...”

“I know. But this is not it. I promise,” Natasha says with reassurance. She knows what Wanda is thinking.

At the young age of seventeen, she had lost both her parents and her twin brother in an arson back in her home country of Sokovia. Her (by then ex) psychotic boyfriend had gone off the rails when Wanda had broken it off with him. He had taken out the rage by setting her family home on fire; without knowing that her parents and brother were inside. They hadn’t made it out in time.

Wanda had been studying overseas in the U.S, but Natasha knows that she still feels a tremendous amount of guilt over what happened. She knows she still blames herself because she was the one who brought the guy into their lives.

“So, how are the rehearsals going?” Wanda asks, changing the subject.

Aside from working at the bookstore with Wanda as her day job, Natasha also takes part in the local theater. She had begun dancing ballet at the age of five back in Russia, where she had been born. Her parents had been killed in a car accident when she had been eight years old. And since Natasha had no other living relatives, she had been placed in a foster home; unfortunately, her foster parents hadn’t been the kindest people and hadn’t treated her all that well.

So to escape, Natasha had spent even more of her time practicing ballet. She had worked hard, knowing that if she did well enough, it could be her chance to get away from her foster parents and her ticket out of Russia.

Fortunately for her, she had a natural talent for it, and she was very determined, not giving up no matter how tough it was. She had worked twice as hard as the other girls, practiced as often as she could, taken the time to master the most complicated and finest moves and positions. And later on, it paid off; she got the chance to compete in a few of the most competitive ballet contests in Russia and winning most of them, too. Those wins, alongside her excellent grades, earned her a scholarship to one of the best dance academies in the world: The Red Room.

So at the age of eighteen, she had moved to the U.S to attend The Red Room, thinking it was going to be the dream; she had never anticipated that it would be a nightmare.

The Red Room had been much tougher and more ruthless than what she had experienced before. And the instructors and pressed the students to their limits, and not in the encouraging, supportive way. No, they worked with punishing and discipline, if you did anything else than what they instructed, if you didn’t hold a position for a certain amount of time or took a wrong step, they’d ground you. Natasha had been one of their top students. One of the best they had seen in a long time, but in the end, it hadn’t mattered much.

She had made it through the three years of education, but it had left physical as well as emotional scars on her, not to mention that it killed her love and passion for dancing.

Which was part of the reason she decided to try out acting, still getting to perform some form of art, but in an entirely different setting.

That’s how she had ended up at The Avengers Theater Company six years ago. She had participated in quite a few plays by now, and she had come to love acting almost as much as she had enjoyed dancing once upon a time. Right now, they’re working on a quite anticipated play by the name Black Widow, based on a well-known book.

The plot – ironically – is about a Russian woman who is a master spy and uses ballet as a way to cover up for it; while she seduces men to get information and classified intel out of them. Later on in the story, she uncovers that she organization she’s been working for has been taken over by the enemy, and she has to work together with an unexpected ally – who’s her polar opposite – in order to take them down.

It’s the first play Natasha is a part of that involves dancing – more specifically ballet – and music. It’s also the first time she’s playing the lead role, something she had been unsettled about doing in the past.

“It’s going pretty well, I think…” Natasha says, taking a sip of her water. “But, I’m still anxious about the dance act…”

Upon starting the rehearsals for Black Widow, she hadn’t danced since The Red Room years ago, and it made her a little uneasy. “But it’s still such an interesting part to play, you know? The character is very complex. She’s a real heroine.”

“You know, I read the book. It was one of the first books I read in English,” Wanda says, “And when you told me the theater company was going to set up a play of it, and that you were in consideration for the lead role, I thought to myself, that you were the perfect fit. Because you’re a lot like her, I mean you even have a similar name. _Natalia Alianovna_. And not to mention that you’re both Russian. It’s like you were destined to play the role.”

“I just hope I can do it justice,” Natasha says, finishing the last bite of her meal. She picks up her phone, checking the time. Their lunch break is almost over.

“You will, I know it,” Wanda says with confidence in her voice.

Natasha gives her a small smile. Knowing that she has friends who’re rooting for her to succeed and provide support certainly helps with her nerves. “Anyway, we should get back to the store. Break’s almost over.”

They gather their things and begin walking back to the book store. It’s only a half-block away from the cafe where they had their lunch, so it doesn’t take more than a few minutes to walk back.

Pym’s Bookstore is located at the corner of the street. There are two huge windows on each side of the entrance. The entry door itself is a bit of a misfit – with its old red-painted frames and squared windows – against the rest of the black framed windows and red brick wall.

Due to the timid outer interior, it’s easy to walk right past it, especially if you are in a hurry.

The inside of the store is just as shy and rather small. Most of the space is taken up by lines of shelves that (shockingly) are stocked with books, well over a hundred by this point. But it has quite a high ceiling and bright lights that light up the room, making it feel airier and bigger than it is. Something that Natasha is rather glad for, or else she would have felt a tad bit claustrophobic, having to spend so many hours on end there.

The bookstore’s owned by a man named Hank Pym, a former scientist from San Francisco. Apparently, he had been fired from his own company a couple of years back, which was the reason he had relocated to Brooklyn and opened the shop (still, it would forever be a mystery to Natasha why a scientist would want to own a bookstore). Mr. Pym wasn’t around a lot though, in fact, Natasha had only met him a handful of times during the two years she had worked there. He was a bit of a mystery in his own right.

Wanda – who had worked there longer than she had – had told her that Pym has some sort lab in his house, where he spends most of his time doing only god knows what.

The store’s therefor overseen by his manager, May Parker.

May, Wanda, and Natasha herself are the only employees. At least as long as you don’t count Peter, May’s sixteen-year-old nephew, who helps out on occasions, mostly during the weekends and during school breaks. He’s a good kid, smart and a little bit of a geek. He’s more interested in technology than books; he’s a massive fan of comic books, though. Natasha thought he’d fit better in a computer store or game shop or something alike, but with that said, he rarely complains or slacks during work hours.

Natasha and Wanda arrive back just in time, (not that the store’s all that busy during the weeks). It’s pretty slow most days, but May wouldn’t have appreciated if they had been late. She was a stickler for being on time. Otherwise, she’s a good boss: fair and straight forward, but still kind and understanding. She never has any issue with swapping shifts or letting you off earlier if it’s needed.

“Oh, great, you’re back,” May exclaim as they walk through the door. The bell above the entrance door jingles as they walk through, announcing their presence. The store’s only occupied by one customer, whose purchases May’s just ringing up at the cash register. She politely wishes the older man a nice day as he gathers up his assets and prepares to leave. She then turns to Wanda and Natasha.

“Mr. Pym just called. He wants me to run some errands for him,” she says and adjusts her glasses that had slid down to the tip of her nose. “Will you two be okay managing the store on your own fort the rest of the day? It should be pretty slow…”

Natasha and Wanda share a glance and shrugs. It’s not like they haven’t handled the store by themselves before. And it’s a Wednesday afternoon, so it’s not exactly going to be a rush of costumers looking for books to buy. “Sure,” they say in unison.

“Great!” May disappears through the door to the back of the store, where the storage and little office are. But she reappears a minute later, sticking her head through the door. “Oh, I almost forgot! We got a delivery with a few boxes of new books this morning. It would be great if you could put them up on the shelves and price-label them.”

“Will do,” Wanda says and rounds the cashier desk. “Nat, will you get the books, and I’ll get price gun.”

Natasha heads back towards the storage as May leaves with a thankful smile and heads out the door, running off on whatever errands Mr. Pym wanted her to do. Natasha turns on the light; the dusty single lightbulb flickers to life. As with the rest of the store, the storage isn’t massive, just enough to store a few shelves, a wobbly desk paired with an equally unsteady chair. A printing machine, and some other supplies such as extra pens, new rolls of price tags for the pricing gun. Spare rolls for the receipt machine. Some notepads and post-it notes. And every once in a while a few boxes with new books for sale.

Whenever Natasha walks into the storage, she gets this feeling of being transported back to the past, because the room has “old and outdated” written all over it.

The office next door – May’s office to be precise – is a moderately more modern and at least it has a computer that’s set up to date and a properly working lamp and a new desk. It’s also a lot brighter, but that might have more to do with the fact that it has a window, it only facing the back alley, but it still offers some more natural light.

Natasha picks up one of the boxes, which is a lot heavier than she had expected (not that she should be surprised, considering it’s full of books) and returns to the store before getting the next one. Wanda is in full swing with pasting on the price tags. “Is that the last one?” she asks when Natasha returns for the third time.

“Yep,” she says and sets down the last box, stretching a little after having carried three rounds of heavyweight. “Where do you want to start?”

Wanda looks up from the desk. “I thought we could start with the romance novels. I already tagged them. So if you wanna organize them on the shelves while I continue tagging the rest?”

“Sure,” Natasha says and takes the stocks of books Wanda’s left on the disk. All the books in the store are first organized after genre; classics, romance, science fiction, mystery novels, and so on. Then they’re sorted in the alphabetic order after either the authors' name or the book title.

They spent the rest of the afternoon packing up, price tagging and putting the books up on the shelves, over and over again. It was like going around in a circle. They (unfortunately) only had two costumes, plus a few people who walked in and looked around but left without buying anything. It was a slow day indeed. Natasha wiped her hands on her pants; they were a little dusty from having moved books around all day, books that had been on the shelves for a long time if the dust were any indication.

“Why don’t you call it a day? I can lock up,” Wanda says as she glances at the antique roman clock on the wall behind the cashier desk. It’s almost a quarter after four. “There’s not much left to do anyway.”

Natasha nods. “You sure you’ll be okay on your own?

“I’ll be fine. You go home.”

Natasha goes to pick up her belongings and her jacket in the back storage.

She zips up her jacket and pulls the straps of her mini-backpack over her shoulders.

“Ok, I’m going,” she says to Wanda as she heads for the door. “See you tomorrow.”

Wanda waves goodbye and turns to tend to the customer who walks past Natasha into the store just as she pushes the door open.

The nice weather from earlier in the day has passed by, it’s a lot dimmer now, and chillier, too. The sky’s covered in dark clouds, and Natasha wonders if it’s going to start raining. She hopes not, at least not until after she’s gotten home. She’s not very fond of the rain, at least not if she has to be outside in it. Being cuddled at home on the couch, under a blanket with a cup of tea and a good book while the rain pours down outside is a whole other story though.

She stuffs her hands in her pockets and walks down the street. More people than Natasha are getting out of work a little early, so the street is busier than usual, with people hurrying to the train station or the subway, or walking along like she is. They’re probably rushing a little more just as she is, to avoid the possibility of getting drained if the clouds open up. Natasha continues on as the wind increases, making her hair messier than it is and losing from her ponytail, causing strands of hair to get in her eyes. She puts a little more pep into her steps as she walks past Prospect Park. Had the weather been better, she would have stopped and admired the beauty of the park or even strolled through it. She had spent a lot of time in that park, had created many memories in it. Memories that now both filled her with joy and sadness and reminded her of the things she lost.

Her neighborhood isn’t much further than the park. She reaches her building just as rain droplets the size of ping-pong balls start falling from the sky like someone opened a faucet on full capacity. Her apartment building is one of the newer ones, with shiny floors and stain-free walls and whole windows. But Natasha thinks it’s just a matter of time before someone will break a window, or scribble on the house wall with spray paint that will take weeks to remove. It always happens sooner or later.

 _Just like everything ends sooner or later in one way or another_ , she thinks to herself as she unlocks the door. She’s met with the dark shadows of her apartment and a pair of light amber eyes peering up at her from beside her feet.

“Hi, Liho,” Natasha says softly and reaches down to scratch the black feline behind the ears. Liho purrs in response and rubs against Natasha’s legs, seemingly contented that her owner is finally home. She drops her bag on the floor and turns on the light in the hallway.

Her apartment is quite small, it only has a master bath and bedroom, and a joint living room and small kitchen. The walls are still empty as she hasn’t had the time or effort to put up any ornaments or photographs. There are still unpacked boxes in her bedroom, and she hasn’t invested in any more furniture than necessary. To a stranger, it would look like she had just moved in and hadn’t quite settled yet – the latter part is true for Natasha as well – but she had been living there for nearly five months already. Moving on was a lot tougher than she had thought; starting over wasn’t as easy as in the movies. And despite the small size of the apartment, Natasha, more often than not, feels like it's too big, as if there’s too much space for one person. Or maybe she’s just so used to sharing a home with another person.

Perhaps it's just that she doesn't remember what it feels like to live alone. Sure, she’s not entirely alone, she has Liho, but the cat doesn’t make much noise, at least not compared to the other four-footed being she’s used to living with, too. Or the other person for that matter, not that it had ever been difficult or annoying to live with Steve. He hadn't been one of those guys who didn’t keep things in order or refused to participate in the household chores.

Natasha walks down the short hallway with Liho at her feet. She peers into the fridge in the kitchen, but as soon as she opens the fridge door, she realizes that she needs to go grocery shopping. It’s empty aside from a few fruits, a takeaway box of food and a carton of orange juice. The takeaway food should still be edible; it’s only been there for a day or so. But Natasha still makes a mental note to go to the store tomorrow, Liho needs more cat food too, and she needs to pick up a few other items anyway.

“You hungry, too?” Natasha asks Liho who’s jumped up on the counter and is mindlessly cleaning her paw. While her food is heating up in the microwave, she feeds Liho’s hers. Natasha grimaces a little at the smell of the cat food, as she puts down Liho’s bowl of food. She watches as the cat devours her meal and wonders how this became the highlight of her day.

In many ways, she feels like her life has played out on autopilot the last couple of months, every day is the same; she goes to work, then to the theaters if she's doing a play. She goes home, feeds Liho, eats dinner and showers, and then goes to bed, and so it continues over and over, like clockwork. She supposes that’s how most people’s lives are, the same routines every day of the year, except for special occasions, like holidays or vacations.

She can’t even recall the last time she went to the movies, had a picnic at the park or went for a hike outside of town. She wonders if maybe the reason her life feels so mundane nowadays, is that she’s so used to sharing those experiences with someone else.

The beep of the microwave interrupts Natasha’s thoughts; she pushes herself off the counter to take out the food from the microwave. Liho has since long finished her dinner and waltzed off, to take what is most likely her seventh nap of the day, on the couch. Natasha chews down the leftovers of her takeaway Chinese-food without much interest or appetite.

* * *

At 10:22 pm, Natasha is ready to tune in for the night. Her evening didn’t get any more exciting after her meal; she had showered and zapped through the TV channels. Most of the shows these days seemed to be crappy reality shows, but she had managed to find a documentary to watch for a while. Liho had continued to sleep on the couch beside her and hadn’t been bothered to stir until Natasha had gotten off the sofa twenty minutes ago to get ready for bed.

As she is about to turn off the bedside lamp, her phone chimes on the bedside table, Natasha frowns, _who on earth is texting her at this time of the night?_ Maybe it was the theater messenger group, or perhaps it's May or Wanda. She reaches over to pick up her phone to see who sent the message. She blinks a few times in disbelief as she sees the senders' name on the screen, and she feels her heart rate speed up; the text is from _Steve_. They haven’t spoken with each other since they broke up in November. Even though they live in the same quarters and have the same friends, they haven’t run into each other either. Natasha doesn't know if that’s pure luck or if they’ve tried to avoid hanging out with their friends at the same time.

Frowning, she reads the text, twice, only to make sure Steve had meant to send it to her, and not someone else. As she reads it through the second time around, it’s starting to make more sense to her, and she calms down a little.

The text is regarding Dodger; their dog — or Natasha guesses it’s more Steve’s dog now — and him asking if she’d like to take care of him during the upcoming weekend.

Natasha stares at the screen for a couple of minutes, unsure what to think or what she should answer. While she misses Dodger dearly and would love to have him for the weekend, she isn’t sure it’s the best idea. She sighs and begins to type out a reply, her finger hovering over the send button – once she’s content with her answer – before she hits it and sends it away.

There’s no going back now. Sometimes it’s the small, seemingly insignificant, decisions in life that turn out to be the biggest and most important decision of them all.

**Author's Note:**

> I debated whether or not to write Dodger in this story, because a part of me felt it was crossing a line, since Dodger exists in real life. But once I began imagining the fic with him in mind, I couldn't imagine it without him. So I hope Chris wouldn't mind me "borrowing" Dodger for this work.
> 
> Reviews and constructive criticism are welcomed and appreciated. Thanks for reading!


End file.
